Great State: Edgemere’s 1st Century

The standard guest list for every Christmas program, parents and grandparents, applies here too, many of them with cameras ready to roll.

Pre-K through 6th Grade each had a memorized song to sing. But sprinkled through this crowd, un-noticed by almost everyone else, were a handful of older ‘kids’ who remember fondly their own days at Edgemere Elementary.

“Those were unique years,” says Edgemere alum Ralph Thompson.

A small group of alumni gathered after the concert in what used to be the kindergarten room when they went to school here.

Judge Thompson, Jim Fentriss, Carol Lee Galbraith, and Ed and Kay Cook. They were here during and just after the years of WWII. Fentriss says, “I used to live right across the street in a duplex at 32nd and Walker. I didn’t have far to walk to school.”

Thompson explains, “Most kids didn’t move so the classmates who started kindergarten, almost all of us went through the 6th grade together.”

They’ve come back several times this year to celebrate Edgemere’s centennial, to walk the halls, and touch the Joan of Arc statue that stands in the main hallway.